Savognin

Hallo wieder von der Schweiz!

So like I said in my last post, this past week was theme week in my school. Theme week is basically a week where students can choose a subject they wish to focus on for a week and go have some fun with it. I chose Geography because I'm not completely horrible at it and can somewhat understand what's going on in that class.

So anyway, on Monday we were in school all day. It was just basically a big long geography lesson which was a little interesting at first but as it went on I found it increasingly hard to pay attention to as I only had a limited understanding. However the next day was where things got interesting. The entire geography class would be taking a two day trip to Savognin. What made it more interesting for me was that I had no idea what we would be doing there, we received a schedule but I wasn't able to understand it all so most of the time I just went with what everyone else was doing and it seemed to work out. On Tuesday morning we all met up at the Chur Bahnhof (train station) and took the train to some remote stop where we then boarded a bus to Savognin. The whole journey took about an hour and a half. Most of which I slept for.

Bus ride to Savognin

 When we got there we got assigned our rooms and had some time to get settled in. I was rooming with my friend Ennio and our friends Simon, Jan and Mauro were in the room next door. After we were all settled in we headed down to a lake near the hotel and just relaxed there for a little while. Ate lunch, played some football (soccer), and just had a good time. After that we all headed up to the top of the mountain near the lake.

 It was about a 15 minute chairlift ride followed by a 10 minute gondola ride to get to the top. Well not actually the top... To get to the peak would be about another 10 minute chairlift ride but that's only open for skiers in the winter so we didn't get to go. But that was fine by me because I only had a sweater and the peak was covered in snow. Anyway once we were off the gondola, we walked along a trail for about two hours which gave me a great opportunity for some pictures:

Panorama of the mountains

Selfie with Ennio, Simon, Mauro, and Jan

We then stopped at a tiny restaurant in the middle of nowhere and had some pasta for dinner which was delicious!

By the time dinner was done it was dark out. We still had about two hours left until we were back to Savognin so it was very interesting to hike in the dark. Until it started to rain. Then it just turned miserable and all we wanted to do was get back to the room where there was actual warmth. The next day we woke up early for breakfast then headed out into the village to ask the locals some questions about life in Savognin. Seeing as my group handled the questions in Swiss-German, I had no idea what was going on, so once again I just kind of rolled with it. After that we had lunch then headed back up the mountain with tricycle type things that we were going to go down the mountain on.

Heading up again

When we got to the top we had a brief geography lesson then proceeded to ride down. We reached speeds of up to 50 km/h and I can honestly say it was one of the scariest, yet most amazing experiences of my life, and I will not forget it anytime soon (unfortunately I don't have any pictures of it). When we got to the bottom we had a little bit of free time before heading to a nearby hotel called "Cube" for a tour.

That's the hotel in the bottom right

The hotel was a 5 star hotel which was all sports themed. It was super modern, colourful, and all-round fun to be in. Also the tour was all in High-German and I was proud to say I understood almost every word the tour guide said, so naturally I left that hotel feeling pretty good about myself. After that we had dinner then free time until bed. The next day we woke up super early, cleaned out the rooms, ate breakfast, then left for our final hike. We walked up some huge mountain with little breaks for lessons along the way.

I tried to pay attention, however that is not easy to do when surrounded by stunning mountains, so I slacked a little bit in the lesson department. After the hike we boarded our bus back to the remote train station then got on the train back to Chur. All in all, a good few days.

I am now officially on fall break for the next two weeks so hopefully I'll have some more stuff to write about real soon. I'm just taking it all day by day and seeing what happens as I go along, because everyday is a new adventure, especially when you live in Switzerland. Tschüss!!

P.S. my day to day life is still super. My host parents are very nice and very easy going. My German is steadily improving with each new day, and I am proud to say I haven't been homesick. There are some days where I miss some people or some things from home, but I know those will all be waiting for me in nine months. For now I will just keep enjoying this beautiful country I now call my second home.